This Life

Chapter 26

"That's one less thing to worry about," Meredith muttered as she began to shut down her computer and head home... to even more chaos.

It was December 23rd and in exactly six hours, both she, Derek and Beth would be on the night flight to Boston to spend Christmas with the Shepherds at the Cape.

"What's one less thing to worry about?" Adele asked.

"The Christmas presents have arrived at Derek's parent's house. All I need to do now is pack," Meredith said as she put on her coat and lifted her bag "I'm going to leave Beth here I'll get more done that way and then collect her while dragging Derek and Mark from surgery and head straight for the airport."

Adele stood up and walked over to her friend "Well, have a lovely Christmas Meredith! Try and get some rest and I'll see you next year!" Adele said as they hugged.

"You too!" Meredith laughed as she practically ran out the door. She could kill Derek for leaving everything to the last minute.

Since the whole chain of events with Mark and his daughter life had been crazy. All Mark wanted to do was drown his sorrows which usually meant he was drunk at their house or at Joes in which case both Owen and Derek would take it in turns to drive him home and get him safely to bed.

Mark's drinking had started when Lexie told him about the pregnancy scare. Mark was disappointed but Lexie was pleased at the outcome; which lead to a furious argument. So while Mark was pouring his heart out to Derek, Lexie was doing the same to Meredith. Thankfully Mark and Lexie were now back to being on speaking terms and Meredith was hoping that the Shepherd family might knock some sense into Mark when they were in Boston.

The end of October saw Derek and Meredith celebrate one year together which had been a subject of great debate to them. They moved to Seattle in October of the previous year and starting dating a short while later, however Derek also felt that the one year should also be celebrated at Christmas as that was when they had first made love.

Meredith insisted on celebrating the milestone in October as there was no way in hell she was going to try and explain the Christmas celebrations to Derek's parents when they finally made it to Boston.

The one year October anniversary was celebrated with dinner at a very expensive Italian restaurant followed by a night at an equally expensive hotel and a champagne breakfast.

Thanksgiving came and went in a blink of an eye. Both Derek and Meredith had volunteered to work and instantly regretted it. The bad weather had caused multiple car accidents and the traditional winter flu season had caused two members of staff to call in sick which left the crèche short staffed. It was 7pm before Meredith and Derek had a chance to speak to each other. By the time they got home it was after 10pm and after getting Beth to bed both of them fell fast asleep on the sofa.

After Thanksgiving came the current cause of madness – Christmas. Even though they would technically not be here for Christmas Derek insisted on decorating the house from top to bottom. Like the previous year Derek was still tempted in buying a tree house for Beth. Meredith had finally talked him into buying a slide for the garden... and that was when the fight started...

Derek wanted to wrap the slide up along with the rest of the Christmas presents for his family and get them sent by Federal Express to his parent's house for Christmas.

Meredith though the Fed Ex idea was great – it would save them trying to carry them around the airport, but she thought it was silly to get a slide delivered to Cape Cod only to be redelivered back to Seattle ten days later and thought it would be better to let Beth have her main present now and could then open and play with all the toys that her grandparents and aunts were sure to buy for her while she was there.